Disclaimer||Obviously, I don't own anything. Frankly, I don't want to. Everything Marvel has done with this so far has been perfection.

A/N: Personally, I am not very well informed with all of the Sciences of Asgard, and the names, and the traditions, so I improvised. Let me know if this sucks. I hope to write more, and I will if enough people want me too.

-Please excuse any grammatical errors. I am so very lazy, and I hate re-reading over something I have just written.

-This is Loki/Thor. Don't like don't read.

-Please review, it would make my day!

It all passed by in a blur.

A terrible, humiliating, resounding blur.

If Loki could scream he would.

If he could open his mouth at all he would.

Just to say something-anything-to stop this moment from swirling out of his control.

Because for a moment there he was in control. He did have the upper hand. New York was crumbling below sea level and he was winning. Unfortunately it was already written from the beginning that he would fail. And fail he did.

Standing so close to his enemy-his once named brother-was nerve-wracking. Loki loathed it. Thor held the Tesseract in his hands, the blue energy contained and safe in the thunderer's hold. But Loki was able to ignore Thor's deep blue gaze, his hard set jaw, and his vibrant red cape that clashed even with his own. Green and red always clashed. It's how it's inscribed in nature.

His wrists were cold, bound, by a thick sterling metal. It made is skin crawl and his arms numb. It sealed everything that was his away. His magic withheld. The metal that bound his mouth, sealed his lips, was worse. Heavier, to say the least. It made him bow his head. That, alone, was enough to make him want to curl up into himself and disappear.

It would be better for everyone wouldn't it? If he were to cease to exist? He believed it would, so wasn't that enough?

The bridge was still destroyed; the rainbow swirls of sparkling energy had faded to a dull grey. Boring…like ice. He felt a pang crack in his stoned heart. He could hear the voices before they had even stepped back fully on the once destroyed attachment to the Bifrost.

Shouts, contained but still loud enough to carry hauntingly on the wind. All of the Asgardians who were angry were allowed to voice their arrogance here. He wasn't even aware of his hesitation until Thor pulled tightly at his elbow, urging him silently on.

Loki still didn't meet Thor's gaze.

He only willed his mind to shut down and his feet to move. And move they did. Slowly, of course, but they did shuffle on the shattered remains beneath them.

The voices seemed to die down as they approached, Thor holding his head high, resembling the very image of the king he was. And Loki felt the all-too-familiar hate and envy bubble up inside him once more.

Whereas Thor could lift his head tall the metal clasped around his jaw enabled him from even looking up. He grinned, a sick small quirk of the lips, knowing no one could see. Ironic, how subtlety they choose to degrade him.

At first, anyway.

Three guards joined Thor's stride, two standing on either side of Loki, one behind. Immediately he felt suffocated. At least while he stood beside Thor he could breathe some. Between the hot metal of the guards and the heavy perfumed scent of Asgard he found it rather difficult to do even that. Thickly, he breathed the dense air through his nose. He felt Thor's blue gaze on him again. And everything tensed as crumbled bridge turned to marble, as the walls of the palace court rose tall, gold, and menacing about them.

Loki felt like an ant.

The guard's hands tightened on their weapons as the faces of hundreds of Asgardians roared into clear view. Suddenly Loki was reminded of how much he despised these pretentious "gods".

Even the children were grimacing, flinching back behind their mother's legs. Occasionally there were slurs of his name; the mis-use of his nickname "silver-tongue" made him flinch involuntarily.

There was one man though, who stood tall and dark in the crowd. If Loki's head wasn't pulled down perhaps he would have moved in time.

At first there was only a shaking in his vision. Then the pounding of his temple and, of course, the unmistakable wetness of blood. He could feel it trickle down his cheek, slip over the metal of the gag. Some went up his nose.

"Look! It bleeds red!" There was laughter at the adolescent jeer and he felt another pointed jab, sharper now, against the shell of his ear.

Again, the wet red flowed. The guards didn't move, they barely flinched and when the third rock hit, about the size of a plum, hard against Loki's neck, it wasn't the guard's that caught him from falling but Thor's.

In that instant, in that moment when the king's hand wrapped around the arms of a criminal punishable by death did the crowd freeze.

They grew still, shockingly quiet and it was only then when Loki was still tilted to the left that he realized Odin and Frigga were at the front of the large doors before them. They stood, tall, unblinking. Thor righted Loki again and his dulled green eyes fell to the marble once more. Thor's fingers tensed around his bicep, clutching through the leather until it hurt, and his azure eyes scanned the crowd with unparallel fury. He said nothing but everything in that moment of dense silence. His grip was bruising and his nails asked the question he longed to voice:

"Can you walk straight?"

Immediately Loki flinched away. Almost as suddenly did he loose his balance. He didn't fall, no, he'd be damned if he did, but he swayed nonetheless and had Thor catch him up again.

Only this time Thor didn't wait for Loki to get his bearings. He just pulled him straight through, too quick for Loki's slurred pace, and at least two more stones fell upon his raven hair before the doors behind Odin and Frigga pulled apart and the two gods stumbled into the safe confines of the sealed away palace. Loki jerked out of Thor's grip, missing the nostalgic warmth of his brother's skin.

He felt sick at himself. His head was throbbing and the butt end of a guard's spear hit his back to straighten him. The anger fueled in him like a fire. He could feel Odin's gaze, the emotionless mask that made him feel all the more alienated, all the more unloved. But Frigga-dear Frigga-looked back with tears overflowing and despair etched deep. It was that look that almost succeeded in making Loki crumble.

The Warriors Three stood far off, tense and with an air of disbelief by the doors leading into the main hall. Loki could only really see Sif, who shifted with angered anxiety under his glare. He didn't wish to see anymore. He wished to have gone blind. All the more so when Thor stepped in front of him, stopping the guard's from pushing him forward further.

It was Thor's eyes, Loki decided, that made one of his walls fall down. He could feel it, the emotion in his own eyes because at that moment of weakness Thor's face broke.

It melted into the most lost, most desperate expression Loki had ever seen. Pathetic, was a word he longed to use but he couldn't very well find the heart to even think it.

Because Thor's blue eyes were staggering and when the soon-to-be king reached up to wipe away the red covering Loki's brow the God of Mischief felt something he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.

He felt a stirring in his heart, a small flittering of regret, of truth, of longing.

"Loki…" It was all Thor managed to say. Odin stepped forward to tear Thor away Loki's heart turned cold once more. The guard's pushed him forward and all he could do was obey.

He could still feel the piercing depths of Thor's gaze, even when the gates swung closed behind them.

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